The Pirate Bay sues anti-piracy activists over copyright infringement

For their latest anti-piracy campaign a Finnish activist group has ripped off the design of the infamous The Pirate Bay website. The Pirate Bay has now threatened to sue the campaigners over copyright infringement.

­The campaign, launched by the anti-piracy group CIAPC, copied TPB's website, including the CSS stylesheet, and replaced the logo with one of a sinking ship. The aim is to link the visitors with a message that informs them of legal alternatives to The Pirate Bay.

This Pirate Bay says the move violates the company’s policy which does not permit theft of the site's design and has threatened legal action.

“We are outraged by this behavior. People must understand what is right and wrong. Stealing material like this on the internet is a threat to economies worldwide,” a Pirate Bay spokesman told TorrentFreak.

“Our site (and all of its contents) is free of charge for anyone for personal usage. Organizations (for instance, but not limited to, non-profit or companies) may use the system if they clear this with the system operators first,” a Pirate Bay policy statement reads.

“We reserve the rights to charge for usage of the site in case this policy is violated. The charge will consist of a basic fee of EUR 5,000 plus bandwidth and other costs that may arise due to the violation,” it adds.

CIAPC is a campaigner that works against copyright infringement on the Internet by preventing the production, distribution of unauthorized copies on the web.